Everyone knew it was rife with in the BBC and probably other organisations. " Liz Kershaw is brave enough to say she was groped, then she's brave enough to say who it was"

Instead of the media calling him Sir Jimmy Savile just call him Jimmy Savile and the Knighthood will fizzle out. He will eventually be forgotten about. His Top Of Pops achieves with will be dropped and everything about him. Even 'Jimmy Savile Charitable Trust and Jimmy Savile Stoke Mandeville Hospital Charitable Trust', may change the name.

Everyone knew it was rife with in the BBC and probably other organisations. " Liz Kershaw is brave enough to say she was groped, then she's brave enough to say who it was"

Completely untrue. For a start, the phrase "everyone knew" is obviously rubbish. Being a freelance, she may well have feared serious repercussions if she had "blabbed" the name of someone who wielded so much clout within the higher echelons of the BBC. Saville was an immensely powerful man in his heyday and he could have had her knocked into oblivion very easily, which could have ended her career abruptly without denting his image at all.

My wife and I know a woman who was raped at an office party by a company executive many years ago. She could never reveal the fact to anybody in or associated with the company because it would have killed her career stone dead - and no other employer would have given her any opportunity at all. She lived in fear of what could happen despite being the victim, so in the case of Jimmy Saville don't assume that it was in any way easy for his victims because it can't have been, especially those working in a more junior capacity within the BBC.

Which gets back to what I was saying only the other day Colin - namely that we live in a sick society

And of course you accused me of being a pessimist but as I said then and I will say again I'm simply a realist

If people can be raped and have no redress because of undue influence why the hell are you so keen to support today's society which accepts such awful things _________________Are you ready for a Ruddles?

Which gets back to what I was saying only the other day Colin - namely that we live in a sick society

You might do but I don't!

ruddlescat wrote:

And of course you accused me of being a pessimist but as I said then and I will say again I'm simply a realist

No you're not. You're just a pessimist. My negative experiences of life are far outweighed by my positive experiences.

ruddlescat wrote:

If people can be raped and have no redress because of undue influence why the hell are you so keen to support today's society which accepts such awful things

Society has "accepted such things" since the year dot. We have a much more civilised society now than ever before. At least, that's what I see through my own eyes - but I wouldn't attempt to speak for you and yours!!

Well I agree Colin that my experiences in life have been more positive than negative - but that's simply because I've been around since 1955 so on the law of averages that's going to be the case quite obviously

If you were to ask me about the last twenty years however then that's a very different story

Britain is no longer as it was a few years ago - corruption is rife in every area of life including the police and politicians - we are flooded out with foreign immigrants - and we are ruled by the unelected beurocrats in Brussels

And that's without even considering the impact of the 'Human Rights Act'

Yes I agree that throughout history there have always been people like Jimmy Savile and Gary Glitter but I don't recall that women were ever raped simply because their bosses knew they could get away with it even in the sixties when I was young - today's society is completely lacking in any vestige of morality when it comes to such things

.....I don't recall that women were ever raped simply because their bosses knew they could get away with it even in the sixties when I was young - today's society is completely lacking in any vestige of morality when it comes to such things

I don't agree with the last statement, and I find it surprising that you think that "back in the sixties" such things weren't happening either.

Being one year older than you, our timelines are therefore very similar, but my perception of life in the UK is obviously different. I mix with a lot of young people aged between 18-30 and my perception is that the majority of them do not conform to the stereotype that has been formed by the media and scare-mongering, often right-wing, commentators. In fact, most younger people I know are what might be described as "fine, upstanding citizens" (to use an old expression)!

Morality is, in the main, alive and kicking and doing very well here in the UK.

Ruddlscat I suggest that, if possible, you switch on Radio 4 and listen to women's experience during the 60s, 70s and 80s when sexual harrassment was rife. I know this from my own experience when I worked in the City of London during the 60s when this sort of behaviour was "normal" and any new girls were warned not to get themselves in a solitary situation with some of the men working there. I can't actually remember any of my colleagues even considering reporting these situations. I think we just accepted it!

I do take your point Essex Lady and don't disagree but I think that in those days whilst there probably were some examples of sexual harassment exactly as you say they were relatively less serious - although of course all such things are always reprehensible

I very much doubt that any woman would have had to suffer the fate of rape without being able to report it simply because she was worried about her career prospects in those days although of course there were certain women who were quite happy to sleep with their bosses in order to further their careers - but of course that is very different in legal terms

As for Colin's comments as I have said before I also regularly associate with young people and agree that most of them are honest and reliable and don't present any problem

However young people are not running the police or the press or sitting as Members of Parliament so it's actually the middle aged group who are probably far more immoral _________________Are you ready for a Ruddles?

You are falling into the same trap (as you did in an earlier thread) and tarring everyone with the same brush. And indeed tarring this generation with past generations' brush.

Sexual harrassment was rife in the sixties when I was a teenager, yet you say we are a 'sick society' today! I can say that the Xmas works party groping was still rife into the early 1980's where I worked. It really doesn't happen today, and if it does everyone soon knows who's guilty.

The old upsatirs - downstairs sexual harrassment of servants was rife in pre-WWII aristocratic households, with many pregnancies and abortions. It was commonly known but ignored - victims and their familiies and friends lived in fear of their employer.

Over the last 30 years there's been a culture change with regard to sexual harrassment so surely the situation, for women anyway, must be better today than it was in the past?_________________-
John W

I very much doubt that any woman would have had to suffer the fate of rape without being able to report it simply because she was worried about her career prospects in those days.....

Well, you are wrong. Very wrong. For many people who find themselves in such a unenviable position life has unimaginable complications.

ruddlescat wrote:

It's an ongoing problem but when it happens today in my view it's far worse than it used to be

The problem is that you don't appear to know "what it used to be" and are therefore working on the basis of your own assumptions and perceptions. I thought members of the legal profession were supposed to deal only in facts?

John W wrote:

The old upsatirs - downstairs sexual harrassment of servants was rife in pre-WWII aristocratic households, with many pregnancies and abortions. It was commonly known but ignored - victims and their familiies and friends lived in fear of their employer.

Exactly, John. My maternal grandmother worked in service at a manor house in the north-east of england before WW1 and she was the product of a rape by the Lord of the Manor and her mother. On the birth certificate the father was listed as "unknown" because to declare the truth would have not only brought disgrace to the "gentleman's" family (even though such things were common) but my great-grandmother would have been cast out into the wilderness and her illegitimate child would have been taken away from her.

We're not talking about things which happened around the time of WW1 sad though such things undoubtedly were - we're comparing the position in the sixties and seventies with the position today

Sexual harrassment has always gone on and probably always will - but my point is that whilst we might have had quite a lot of it 40 years ago it was generally a 'spur of the moment' thing in those days and at a much lower level whereas today there are certain cool calculating bastards who have a game plan to obtain their sexual gratification come hell or high water as in the case of the example you so sadly described

Life is never perfect but there's no doubt in my mind that it's got the hell of a lot worse over the last 20 years

Oh yes and getting back to your point about lawyers and facts I can tell you for an absolute fact that the level of sexual offending in the sixties and seventies was far lower than it is today - although I do concede that the level of reporting is probably going to be higher than it was in those days - but not a great deal higher_________________Are you ready for a Ruddles?

We're not talking about things which happened around the time of WW1 - we're comparing the position in the sixties and seventies with the position today

I am up to speed. You have asserted (on more than one occasion) that things are effectively worse today than they ever have been. I'm supporting my view (and that of others) that such things have occurred since the dawn of time.

Quote:

Life is never perfect but there's no doubt in my mind that it's got the hell of a lot worse over the last 20 years

I've never ever said that things today are worse than the ever have been - how could I being that I've only been alive for just over 57 years

What I said was that things have deteriorated over the last 40 to 50 years which I still maintain is true

Of course life today isn't as bad as in the days of the Roman Empire or around the time when we had the Viking invasion but that's totally irrelavent to this discussion as is the situation around 100 years ago

We're talking about comparing years which we have both lived through so can we kindly confine the discussion to what is relevant _________________Are you ready for a Ruddles?

You're still missing a salient point. What I'm saying is that if things are a whole lot worse than they were, say, 40 or 50 years ago then by implication things were probably better than that 40 or 50 years before - the supposition being that things get increasingly worse with time. But that clearly isn't necessarily the case - hence my reference to a not-uncommon scenario over 100 years ago.

The point in all this is that a woman who has been sexually abused might be too fearful to speak out against the perpetrator of that abuse for fear of compromising her employment position and career; you imply that it's a sign of the times that such women can't obtain justice due to the increasing levels of immorality in post-WW2 years. I simply pointed out that I don't believe that to be the case, and that women throughout the ages have suffered this problem - and that's why I referred to the case of my great-grandmother. Nothing changes, in other words.

To be honest Colin I'm not sure that things get either better or worse with time

I just think that as time goes by certain unsavoury people become clever at finding new modern sophisticated ways to achieve the abuse which was probably far more down to earth in the past but somehow it's far more difficult to combat - and the fact they bother to employ such devious methods to do that to me says a great deal about our current society _________________Are you ready for a Ruddles?

Let's face it. If you were in a car with Jim, and clunk-clicked..he'd have his hands on your bits before you got into second gear.

I wouldn't put John Peel in his category, but the press seem zealous in extremis, in their crusade to get Radio Onederful banished from the history books. This would never have happened if they hadn't scuppered the pirates...and we wouldn't have had to suffer The Boat That Rocked.

Latest...

Derek Chinnery -"So, Jim..what about these rumours going around about you and underage girls?"

Jim - "Now then, now then, Sir Del...load of cobblers"

Derek Chinnery "Thank heavens for that."

Must have been like the Spanish Inquisition._________________life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans